Navy Launches Unarmed Trident II D5 Submarine-Fired Nuclear Missile in Massive Live Fire

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

A weapon capable of massive destructive power …. fired out from beneath the surface of the ocean off the coast of California, when the Navy’s USS Louisiana ballistic missile submarine launched an unarmed, nuclear-capable Trident II D5LE.

While the weapon was of course unarmed, the firing was the latest readiness test of the Pentagon’s undersea leg of the nuclear trial in support of strategic nuclear deterrence. The concept is as simple as it is paradoxical in a way, ensuring massive retaliatory destruction for any nation-state which launches a nuclear attack on the United States.

Peace through power and the promise of complete annihilation may seem contradictory, yet the idea is the conceptual foundation of nuclear-deterrence in the modern age. Therefore, US Navy Strategic System Program makes a regular point to ensure readiness and operational effectiveness of its undersea nuclear weapons capability .. to remind potential adversaries that any nuclear attack upon the US will result in their complete destruction.

Nuclear armed submarines quietly and secretly patrol the deep, dark corners of the ocean from strategic leverage points in position to attack and destroy major targets with nuclear weapons if necessary. The USS Louisiana fired its “test-missile” at the Western Test Range off the coast of San Diego, California Sept. 27.

“The sea-based leg makes up the majority – approximately 70 percent – of the U.S.’s deployed strategic nuclear deterrent Triad. The SLBM is the most survivable leg of the triad, provides a persistent presence, and allows for flexible concepts of operations,” a Navy essay on the test-firing writes. 

Trident II D5 Life-Extension

Firing the Trident II D5 Life Extension missile is quite significant as well, given that the 1990s-era missile has been upgraded into a new “life-extension” variant designed to preserve the weapons functionality decades into the future.